Have you ever wanted to do internet temple worship? It turns out David & Kristine Ferriman of the Church of Jesus Christ in Christian Fellowship have their own internet temple worship.
Internet Temple Worship
GT 45:44 All right. So, you live in Ohio. Is that right?
David: Correct.
GT: So, all this occurred while you were living in Ohio. Have you ever lived in Utah?
David 45:55 No.
GT 45:56 No. So, you were born and raised in Ohio. Is that right?
David 45:59 Yes. I’ve been in Utah couple of times, but I was born and raised in Ohio.
GT 46:03 Okay, so that’s interesting.
David 46:06 The original gathering place of the saints.
GT 46:09 How far are you from Kirtland? I’m curious.
David 46:12 We’re down…
Kristine 46:13 Right now, about three and a half hours.
David 46:14 Yeah.
GT 46:15 Okay.
Kristine 46:16 We were on the other side. Yeah.
GT 46:18 Are you closer to Columbus?
David 46:20 Yes.
GT 46:21 Okay.
David 46:22 We’re closer to–we’re like between Dayton and Cincinnati.
GT 46:28 Okay, Well, cool. So, what other revelations have you had? I’m curious, if you still follow the Word of Wisdom. Is that a big deal in your Fellowship?
David 46:41 We follow it very strictly based on what it says that it is not by commandment nor restraint. I actually have an article about this on the blog, which is Word of Wisdom, and it basically says the Word of Wisdom isn’t given to us to tell us what to eat and drink, because it’s too confusing. It doesn’t make sense if you read it that way. It’s given to us as an opportunity to gain personal revelation from the Lord, as to what you personally should be eating or drinking. So, we are not like the Brighamites, where it’s no coffee or tea. We’re going to take something away from you, if you drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. It’s just look, smoking isn’t healthy. So, we don’t recommend it. But we’re not going to kick you out if you do.
GT 47:35 So, it reminds me of the sacrament, then. It seems like you do online sacrament meeting, or communion. Do you use wine or water?
David 47:44 Whichever is preferred. Yeah.
GT 47:47 It’s just a personal choice?
David 47:49 Yeah.
GT 47:50 And I don’t know, congregants, what do you call people in your movement?
David 47:56 Well, if they are there participating, they are a part of the congregation.
GT 47:59 Okay.
David 48:01 I call them fellows, because I think it’s kind of–it amuses me to do that, I guess, they’re part of the fellowship. Really, we call each other saints.
GT 48:12 So, Kristine, did you leave the LDS Church at the same time as your husband, or were you kicked out at the same time? (Chuckling)
Kristine 48:19 I was not kicked out at the same time, I did make the choice to leave around that time, for reasons tied to my husband’s experience, as well as my own. Until recently, I was still on their records, and I’m no longer on their records.
GT 48:43 Okay.
David 48:45 She was excommunicated after they found out about her revelation.
GT 48:51 So, you were a dual citizen for a while?
David 48:53 Yeah.
GT 48:55 I’m beginning to learn that there’s a lot more dual citizens out there than I realized.
David 49:04 I love that, because I love the idea of taking what you learn in one sect and bringing it back to the other, and that goes both ways.
GT 49:18 Interesting. So tell us more about your revelations that you’ve received.
David 49:23 I mean, some of them are just how to run the organization. Some of them, there’s one particular one for Levites, specifically. Then, I have a revelation that I received for people that were either in leadership positions in the Fellowship at the time or some way connected to us. Basically, the revelations came because there was a need or because the Lord is going to tell us something. The two that came to me that, to be quite frank, I don’t feel I’m worthy to have received, are the Call to Israel and the Call to Unify as the Saints.
David 50:10 The reason why I say that is because I have a friend named Jeff. He likes to say, “Stay in your lane.” So, if you’re a prophet for this denomination, be a prophet for that denomination. Don’t go telling this other denomination how they should run their lives. But, these two revelations, the Lord told me, these are for the world and the Latter Day Saint movement. The coming of Israel talks about the idea that what it means to be Israel, and how we need to be a people–what kind of people we need to be, basically.
David 50:48 The other one talks about building the temple in Missouri. I want to be very clear that it doesn’t say that I, myself, or that the fellowship is supposed to go out and build this. What it says is that the Cutlerites and Community of Christ and the Salt Lake City Church and various other sects are all supposed to work together with the Temple Lot organization, that denomination, to make it happen. Because right now, if you go there, and you look around, you can see how we’re all separated. But the Lord wants us to build that temple so that we can be one people, not one church, but one people.
GT 51:31 Now is it going to be one temple or 24 temples?
David 51:34 It’ll be one temple, and the idea, as I understand it, is that there’s supposed to be a committee made up of all the different denominations within the Latter Day Saint movement, and it’s supposed to be a temple that everyone is allowed to use for their ordinances, whatever it is that they do in their various sects.
GT 51:57 Because, did you know that Joseph Smith originally had planned 24 temples?
David 52:02 Oh, well, I don’t know about the other ones, I only received the revelation about that particular one. So, the other 24 will have to be for, I don’t know, maybe I’ll have another revelation later. Maybe that’s somebody else. But here’s the bottom line, we’ve got to build the first one first, and that’s the one the Lord is giving me a revelation on. But it’s not one that I, myself, or anyone in the fellowship is doing anything about, because it’s not our temple and it’s not our job to build it.
GT 52:30 Okay, well, let me just throw a couple of things out. I have posted an interview with John Hamer. He talked about the original 24 temples. I also have an interview. I’ve been editing it, I was working on it last night, with a guy named David Hall, who is the ultimate expert on the city of Zion, or–he doesn’t like that name. But, at any rate, the revelation that Joseph had, there were supposed to be 24 temples, although temples is a little bit of a misnomer. Anyway, you’ll have to check out that [interview.] It’s really interesting conversation with David Hall. I’ll just throw that out there.
David 53:11 The revelations I’ve received, when it comes to that type of thing are more about how we can unite as saints, than anything else. Because how can we prepare for the Second Coming, if we can’t even prepare–we can’t even build a temple together for crying out loud. That ground has been sitting empty forever. ]
GT 53:28 Yeah. Well, since we’re talking about temples, please correct me if I’m wrong, it seems like I recall hearing about your movement that you do temple worship over Zoom. Is that correct?
David 53:45 Correct. We encourage people to have a home temple, a portion of their home that they can use as a temple space.
GT 53:52 What can you tell us? I want to be careful because I know that in the LDS tradition, that can be a little bit of a touchy subject. So, what can you tell us that won’t get–well, I guess you’re not in our church, so you’re already in trouble. (Chuckling) What can you tell us about your temple worship?
David 54:11 So, basically, it’s more like, as I understand it, it’s more like what Joseph Smith originally was doing, where the focus is on receiving what I call the mudras, the mantras; the signs and tokens and what we’re supposed to do with them. There isn’t like a big drama. I love the fact that Brigham Young came up with a drama. It’s a beautiful thing to watch, and it’s very instructive. But it’s not the way the Lord instructed us to do it. So, what we do is, if you are ordained a deacon or a teacher, you receive the first endowment. If you are ordained a priest or a priestess, you receive the first and second, and so on and so forth. Then you have the second two for the Melchizedek priesthood, or the Magdalene priesthood for women.
GT 55:12 The Magdalene instead of Melchizedek?
David 55:14 Correct. Yeah. It’s Miriam and Aaron for the Levitical.
GT 55:20 Oh.
David 55:24 Basically, we go into our home temples. The person officiating puts on their full temple clothing. We don’t have veils. We do use the tallit. That is by instruction from a revelation from the Lord. We walk people through. First, they’re ordained, then they receive their Kirtland Temple endowment, or initiatory, whichever you want to call it. Then you move up from there. But we don’t teach that the temple endowment is there to get you into the celestial kingdom. We teach that these are given to us to help us in our ministries. So, we teach people that take the signs and tokens and use them as they meditate to receive revelation from the Lord. I like to call them antennas, because I’m older. I remember what antennas are and what they’re for. But I personally have found and can testify that in using them both with Kristine in meditation together and in personal meditation, I become closer in tune with the Lord. Also, I’ll say this. We talk about the keys of the priesthood. We look at those more like piano keys. That actually came from a revelation from Victoria Ramirez. It’s about being in tune with the Lord. It’s not about starting a car. It’s about making sure that when the Lord is making a sound, that we are making a sound. We’re in the same frequency, the same keys. So, does that makes sense?
GT 57:07 Yeah. So, how similar or different would it be to LDS temple practices, would you say?
Kristine 57:15 There are similarities.
David 57:17 Yeah.
Kristine 57:19 I mean, it’s all public, if anybody wanted to read through the temple…
David 57:24 It’s in our Ordinances of the Saints, and then also in the Book of Remembrance.
Kristine 57:30 The entire production, if you will, I guess.
David 57:34 Yeah. The biggest difference to me, it’s more like a sacrament and less like, I don’t mean this in a bad way. I don’t mean to offend Brighamites. It’s less of a theater and more of a sacrament. More of a sacrament, like baptism.
GT 57:50 Okay. Interesting. What else should we know about your church, or your movement?
David 58:04 If you’re looking for a building, we would love for you to come and help us build one. But, right now, we’re just online. We’re always growing. The one thing that I find fascinating about it is the Lord always sends the people that we need when we need them. So, no matter how big the task is, the Lord always provides a way. Because of that, I know that this is his work and that we’re doing it for His glory. I don’t have any interest in doing this. I love the gospel. I love talking about the gospel. I love helping people. But I don’t want to be a prophet. I don’t. But I’m doing it because I love the Lord and he’s asked me to do it. So, if you talk to me and I seem too sarcastic, or I seem too irreverent, it’s because if I’m not myself, then I’m not going to be able to serve the Lord properly. So, we invite you to come and see and to come and be yourself.
Kristine 59:22 We’ve been hugely edified by the people who have been able to meet through this and it’s been a pretty fun ride so far.
David 59:34 It’s been interesting. It has been soul affirming.
GT 59:39 Alright, well remind us your website again.
David 59:44 [Our website is] https://cjccf.org, which are the initials for Church of Jesus Christ in Christian fellowship. If you can’t find us that way, you can also just Google Mormon Kabbalah and after you get past all the anti-Mormon stuff, we’ll be there.
GT 1:00:03 So you still call yourselves Mormons, I guess?
David 1:00:06 Absolutely. Yeah. It’s kind of funny. We joke with our friends and family members that are still part of the Salt Lake City Church, and we’re like, “Well, we’re still Mormons, just like Joseph Smith.” (Chuckling)
GT 1:00:22 (Chuckling) Alright. Well, I think I’ve run out of questions. But I thank you so much. It’s been fun to feature The Fellowship. Is that we call yourselves?
David 1:00:32 Yes. We appreciate you taking the time.
GT 1:00:35 Thanks for being on Gospel Tangents. I really appreciate it.
David 1:00:38 Thank you. God bless you.
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